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DESERVED PRAISE OF VIVA AMERICA High Price Refused for a Filly Which Was Unlucky in Ever Being Defeated. By T. B. Cromwell. Lexington, Ky., August 25. Charles T. Worthing-ton this week declined an offer of 5,000, made by a prominent eastern racing official, on behalf of a wealthy New York racing devotee, for Viva America and, when later he was asked by the same party to name the lowest price he would take for the splendid daughter of McGee Pink Rose, he said 0,000, "and," he added, "I really do not want to sell her." Viva America has Avon 1917.sh,925 for Mr. Worthington and her trainer, William Perkins, is quite satisfied that she will win several times that amount before the end of her first year in racing, since she is eligible to the Breeders Futurity, to be decided on the closing day of the Lexington meeting, September 22, and to the stakes for two-year-olils at Douglas Park, Churchill Downs and Latonia. "This filly," said trainer Perkins, as he and the writer looked her over at the Kentucky Association track a couple of hiornings ago, after a gallop in which she displayed her fitness, "has been to the post seven times and she was returned winner five times. She rightfully should have an unbroken line of victories. She made her first start at Douglas Park May 20, ran four and one half furlongs in 54, and won with surprising ease. George J. Longs Amelita Avas second to her. In her next start at Douglas Park. June G, she ran fiverighths in 1:00 and beat Jack Hare Jr. and several others. Then on June 13 at Latonia, she won the Clipsetta Stakes so easy that it looked like a shame to take the money. Gypsy Queen, Ocean Sweep, Atalanta, Blue Paradise, Violet Bonnie and Ichi-Ban were behind her in that race of five-eighths in 1:00. I must confess , that I babied her after that and it cost us the Cincinnati Trophy. Never Educated to Break Out of Hand. "If I had gone on and given her the good stiff work she should have had, she would have won as certainly as I am talking to you. Instead she set a fast pace for a half mile and hadnt any steam left witli which to finish the next quarter and so her position at the close of the race was eighth. We shipped to Canada and on July 14, fifteen days after the race for the Trophy, I sent her to tho post again. Somebody told starter Dade that Viva America was apt to break up the start for him and make him look cheap and he put a man at her head. She had never been educated to break out of hand and the result was she was all but left at the post. Even then she finished third to Jack Hare Jr. and High Cost, both of which have since showed to be rattling good horses at Saratoga. I explained to starter Dade just how quiet a filly she really Is at the post and the next time out he kept his assistant away from her. She gave Atalanta six pounds and defeated her easily and then came back in the Eden wold Stakes at Windsor, carried 118 pounds to Jack Hare Jr.s 111, and whipped him decisively. That was her last race. We shipped back to Lexington and tho filly has been doing fine. She is ready to run for a mans ife and I do not mind going on record with the statement of my belief that she will be the one that everybody will have to beat for the Breeders Futurity. Shes the best filly I ever trained and I, of course, would hate to see her change hands."
